They would ask me what actors I saw in the roles. I would tell them, and they’d say “Oh that’s interesting.” And that would be the end of it.
--Elmore Leonard, in 2000, on the extent of his input for Hollywood's adaptation of his novels

Friday, August 28, 2015

Robert Masello's "The Einstein Prophecy"

Robert Masello is an award-winning journalist, television writer (Charmed, Sliders, Poltergeist: the Legacy) and the bestselling author of many novels and nonfiction books, including Blood and Ice, The Medusa Amulet, and The Romanov Cross. His most recent supernatural thriller, The Einstein Prophecy, occupied the # 1 slot in the Amazon Kindle story for much of July. He lives and works in Santa Monica, CA.

Here Masello dreamcasts an adaptation of The Einstein Prophecy:

At some point in every author’s life, he or she briefly dreams of what the book might look like as a movie, and who might be in it. I try not to focus on it, but since we’re dreaming here, if I were to cast the major roles in The Einstein Prophecy, I’d give some serious thought to the following.

For the role of Einstein, there’s a raft of veteran character actors (all of the ones who come to mind, interestingly enough, are from the UK) who might be wonderful in the role. In the book, set in 1945, Einstein is in his mid- 60s, so someone like Jonathan Pryce (who was so wonderful in Wolf Hall recently), or Gary Oldman (who can disappear into any role at all), or the venerable Derek Jacobi, whose face actually has much the right heft and shape to it.

For Lieutenant Lucas Athan, my hero . . . I’m drawing only one name – Michael Fassbender, also a protean actor -- who projects intelligence and intensity. Lucas is a wounded American war vet, who has returned to Princeton to teach art history, and then gets recruited by the OSS to decipher the meaning and importance of an ancient ossuary (a sort of sarcophagus) that has landed at the university for urgent study. This is a brilliant but tormented guy, with only eye left, and who has walled himself off from life in many ways.

For the heroine, Simone Rashid, I need an exotic beauty of half-English, half-Egyptian extraction. I wish I knew more Arabic actresses, but seeing as she is also half-English, I’d go with the beautiful Olivia Wilde. The character is a very determined and serious scholar of antiquity, strong and resourceful at every turn, with whom Lucas eventually falls in love.

Finally, when it comes to the director, I have two choices -- JJ Abrams, because he’s great at it and because this spooky material might really be up his alley. (Also, my young cousin works for his company, Bad Robot – which couldn’t hurt.) Or, if JJ’s too busy, I have a dark horse candidate – Mark Romanek, best known perhaps for his slew of stunning music videos, including my favorite, The Perfect Drug by Nine Inch Nails. (If you haven’t seen it, watch it!) Also, he went to New Trier High School on the North Shore of Chicago; I went to its rival, Evanston Township. Together, we could create détente.

“Compared to a novel, a film is like an economy pizza where there are no olives, no ham, no anchovies, no mushrooms, and all you’ve got is the dough.”
--Louis de Bernières, author of Captain Corelli’s Mandolin